Yankees bounce back, beat the Rays 8-4

The Yankees flipped the script from yesterday’s game, breaking out the bats in the first game of today’s doubleheader against Tampa Bay. A trio of home runs were enough to back up Gerrit Cole and company, putting New York on top 8-4. Since it’s going to be a quick turnaround to the next game, we’re going to condense our highlights and recaps for these doubleheader games into bullet form. Here’s how the Bombers got back in the win column:

• The Yankees didn’t take long to get an opportunity to score this time around. After DJ LeMahieu lined out to start the third, Aaron Judge singled to left and Mike Ford blasted his first home run of the season to take a 2-0 lead. A pair of walks to Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres set up Gio Urshela for a two-run double that gave New York a commanding 4-0 lead with Gerrit Cole on the mound.
• Speaking of Cole, he looked sharper than he has all season today. Cole reached double-digit strikeouts for the first time as a Yankee, crusing through the first four innings. He ran into trouble in the fifth, however. Cole’s pitch count was nearing 100 when he have up a one-out double to Mike Zunino, and a cross-up between Cole and Gary Sanchez prevented Cole from escaping the inning. Instead, Ji-Man Choi slapped another double, and Aaron Boone left Cole out to try and finish the inning. Jose Martinez punished that decision, blasting a two-run shot to center that ended Cole’s day.
• Fortunately for Cole, the offense had his back. Stanton hit a solo-shot in the top half of the fifth, and Judge launched his eighth home run of the season in the sixth to put the Yankees ahead 7-3. Chad Green allowed a run to come across in the bottom of the sixth, but Urshela lifted a sacrifice fly that scored Mike Tauchman in the seventh to get that run back.
• It was a tough time for the bottom of the Yankees lineup, as Sanchez and Brett Gardner went a combined 0-for-six. Sanchez did walk twice, but he also struck out with the bases loaded in the second inning on a pitch way out of the strike zone.
• Gleyber Torres entered the game as another bat that was slumping, but he managed to get an encouraging sign. Torres broke an 0-for-24 stretch with a single in the second inning, and later added the walk and run scored in the sixth. The Yankees need Torres’ bat to heat up to solidify the middle of their lineup, and he may be close to a turnaround.
• The Yankees ended an ugly little stretch in the Trop. In their previous five games on the road against Tampa Bay, they were 0-5 with just five runs scored and 23 hits total. Today they collected eight runs on 11 hits. More of the latter, please.

Here is your box score, and here’s a chart of the game action: